Once you reach goal, you'll find that it's more difficult than you would think to switch to maintenance mentality. One thing someone told me after I'd already gone about 20 lbs below goal was that I should re-enter my goal weight as my beginning weight and as a goal weight for a date at least a year away. Having gotten so far below goal, I needed to gain a little but found I liked me at a lower weight, so I'm using that as my goal weight. Not that my calories and macronutrients were recalculated, but I went in and put my calories up a little anyway to try to not look so anorexic. It's hard not to see the scale keep going down, but believe me, when people start asking if you're OK, you realize it's not a good thing to get too thin.

I started SP at 138 lbs in October 2010. My goal weight was supposed to be 125, which I reached on January 17, 2011. I have stayed at 125 (give or take a few pounds) ever since.

As predicted, today is a fluctuation up. But I'm not worried. Goal will get here soon. Meanwhile, I have a 5K training to get in this evening. I want to be able to run 30 minutes continually, and I'm not there yet.

I'm pretty new myself on this team, having just reached my goal about 4 weeks ago. Maintenance is a whole new mind game, I have found. I am actually under my goal, sort of accidentally. But the idea of eating more or exercising less to GAIN is positively scary, so I guess I still have the "must lose" mentality. This team is helping A LOT! People have great ideas and great perspectives on maintenance. And the monthly challenges to maintain gives us our own "goal" to strive for. I hope you'll join the challenge next month.

I'm finding I have to tweak the numbers to get SparkPeople to give me appropriate calories to consume and calories to burn. As I said, I was still losing! So far, I find that naming my own number of calories burned in a week helps bring the SparkPeople numbers more in line with my situation. I find that tracking calories in and out is, for me, the single most effective tool in weight loss and in weight maintenance. I expect I'll be tracking calories for a long, long time.

The scale is my guide for now. But my real "goal" is to be as healthy as absolutely possible as I get older. So lifestyle--eating well, exercising regularly, finding inner contentment--is a big, big deal for me.

Let me be the first to welcome you, Kevin! I joined this team a year ago last January, when I was 4 pounds from my goal, at the encouragement of another Spark friend. It has been quite valuable to me, as I find maintenance to be its own little challenge. You stop seeing the numbers drop, which had an immediate "reward" feeling to it.

You have to keep playing those mind games you've talked about in your blogs to maintain. One interesting twist? Think about what it is you are trying to maintain. Is it a number on the scale? Some health measurement your Dr. has mandated? A waist size? A "feeling good"? A fitness level?

Once you know what you're trying to maintain, measuring it becomes a matter of self-discipline. Me? I'm maintaining my motivation to stay fit and healthy... and this team helps!

- Barb

Defeat is temporary: giving up makes it permanent! Never give up!

Max lifetime weight 224.5 (1989)

Maintaining with 122 marked as "goal" since October 2010 Moved center weight for maintenance to 120 in 2015.

I've been on SparkPeople 11 weeks today, and the weight has come off faster than I thought possible. As of this morning, I was two pounds from goal. I expect that's a fluctuation downward, and I'll weigh a little more tomorrow; but it brings home the idea that I'm not far from goal and I need to think about what I do when I get there. If I'd already reached goal, today's weight would be within maintenance range.

So I've been browsing some threads here to see what people in maintenance talk about and deal with. I hope to be here quite a bit in the not too distant future.

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